How to create an effective wellness program

Many successful companies understand the importance of a healthy workforce. When your employees are healthy they are more productive and less likely to take time off work. In order to keep your staff healthy and happy you should consider starting a wellness program. What makes a wellness program effective and how can you implement one that your employees will actually follow?

Surveys
Before you start to create a wellness program you need to start focusing on the needs of your staff. What things do they want to have in a wellness program? Understanding what their needs are will allow you to incorporate them into a wellness program that they will actually have a desire to participate in. This is the biggest step in a successful wellness program as you need to get your employees to actually participate in it for it to work. Send out surveys when you are in the planning phase to get some of their ideas together so you know what you are working with and if they are feasible ideas.

Research
Like surveys you have to go out and find out all you can about wellness programs. You need to look for a program that is going to work for your facility and to also search for a wellness program that is affordable and doable. Talk to your insurance provider to find out how much you can save by implementing a wellness program as it will help you to see if it is worth doing. Read over reports from other companies that have implemented wellness programs to see what worked for them and how you can bring this to your company. The more you research, the easier it will be for you to put together a solid wellness program that your company can actually achieve.

Questionnaires
To understand what type of health concerns your staff has you will need each one of them to complete a HRA (health risk assessment) as this will be able to show you what type of medical history the employees have. This way you can pay more attention to things like weight loss if you see that a large number of your employees report obesity and heart disease as large concerns. Getting the data on your workforce will help you to see if the wellness program is working after a few months of proper implementation. Who should gather the information for the HRA? You should talk to your health care provider about coming in to offer health examinations and free health screenings. They will be able to collect the information you need about your staff and this will help you with the wellness program.

Implementation
Once you have all the data and you are able to see what type of wellness programs your employees are in need of, you can start with the implementation phase. The implementation of the wellness program has to come from management. Each member of your management has to be committed to the program and they need to do it. By becoming an active participant, it helps to show your employees just how important it is and they will have a desire to participate as well.

Start by holding a meeting with your entire staff and talk to them about the wellness program. Show them how it will work so they can find out which things they can participate in and which things will work effectively for them. The Human Resources department will then be in charge of following up with the program and to be sure that your employees are following through with the goals of the program and that they are actually able to get compensation if they do the hard work.